An All-Day Process

After my last experience with the laundromat i’d had enough. I vowed never to set foot in an establishment that didn’t allow my machete again. Another week came and went. It was Saturday. Come Monday i would need clean scrubs to wear to work. Just because i was living my little house on the prairie dream at home did not mean they wouldn’t hold me to 21st century standards in town. When i looked into what it would take to hand wash my laundry i came to three conclusions. 1. Vintage **** is expensive. 2. Laundry during those days was made better. 3. If you buy a piece of vintage laundry equipment you have to wait for shipping. I’d be doing laundry in 5 to 10 business days. At some point i just accepted that it was going to be an all day process with mostly macgyvered materials. I was right. From sun up to sun down my day revolved around the laundry. I would continue to set aside one whole day to do laundry each week until a coworker’s husband (an electrician) so graciously agreed to trek into the woods to create an outlet for the washing machine for a discounted fee. I could not scrub my laundry against a washboard because the thread-bare and poorly-made modern garments would come apart and disentigrate. I had to rethink this hand-washing idea. I decided to use the bath tub and a broom handle to stir and agitate the laundry. At least, that was the plan. However, when i got down to it my two good old fashioned hands were a way better washing machine agitator than the wooden stick. I leaned over the tub and stirred the garments all around in the soapy water, rolling them over and swishing them under one another with my hands. I had to do the laundry in batches because only a handful of garments would fit in the tub at one time. I rang as much of the soapy water out of each garment as i could before tossing them into a cold bucket of fresh water to rinse the residual soap out. I rung the garments out by hand once again over the porch steps and hung them on the laundry line to dry. I did this for 8 hours. All of the laundry was clean, sweet smelling, and wrinkle free. I was absolutely exhausted and my hands were raw and red. However, i did not have to relinquish my weapon and the clothes got washed.